These gloomy sods have released some of the best 90s pop music, and now that both Linn and Jenny have officially pissed off, here is a quick run down of their best tracks.
01. The Sign
Linn's unmistakably constipated gurning and gloomy deadpan 'eurika' lyrics are oddly uplifting. As a 9 year old I was 'OMG obsessed' with this song. It was the first single I bought, and I totally was in love with Ulf (and, yes, I still would). Amazing to think this was a US #1.
02. Life Is A Flower
Seemingly coming from nowhere, I never expected a comeback from these guys - the video was horrendous and yet its melody attracts all the attention away from it, completely sweeping you of your feet. This one really flies.
03. Never Gonna Say I'm Sorry
'I am like a clown and I know I'm not normal' kind of rings true with me - I know what it's like to ingratiate myself without many people noticing what I am doing, all the while second-guessing yourself as to who the joke is even on. Ahh well, I'm self-obsessed and love singing the defiant lyrics, and the melody is their strongest along with The Sign. Their nasal, bleeding vocal style is extremely strong here. I am pretty sure they are aiming to be self-deprecating, but you just can never tell with these guys.
04. Travel To Romantis
A criminal flop and 'too European' for their British label to pass a UK release for. The bridge is their best (oddly that album wasn't a concept record). The best dance track off Flowers, or the only one rather.
05. Blooming 18
Just divine, at moments I feel it is the best they ever recorded. A naff rap can't even hinder it's progress, the dual-bleeding vocal and celtic hippy bits are stunning, plus I love hearing anyone rap 'c'mon wash your mouth, c'mon wash your mouth' at the best of times.
06. All That She Wants
We all know this one. Despite not having aged very well, I still remember singing this in class all day back in the day. It was all over the radio like AIDS in an 80s gay club in Nigeria and I for one was taking notice.
07. Cecilia
I won't go there with the concept of the track, but this is one of their most boyuant melodies and yet another missed opportunity for a single from their career-best Flowers album.
08. Don't Turn Around
After the arousing 'I will survive' talky bit the song might not quite keep up the excitement, but low and behold 'walk out that door, see if I care, go on and go' goes and tops it. Sad and gorgeous, it is not until 1998's Don't Walk Away that they revisit the avenue of MOR balladry with any success.
09. Beautiful Life
Top 20 in the UK after their unbelievable success previously was disappointing, especially when the track is so pulsating and rampantly serious about life being wonderful.
10. Young & Proud
The most emphatic they ever did sound, with the guitars and gutsy beat making it their most unlfinching dancefloor pursuit. The wailing chorus sneers about how good it is to be young and stuff about 'anyway you do it boy'.
11. Dr. Sun
Slinky vocal sections that just slide onto the next hook, with a glistening guitar chorus that requires sunglasses it's so shiny. This was my summer of 2007 cycling song - apparantly there is an 'in joke' regarding the lyric, at which point you just want to scream at them for not telling such is their need to allow us to find them remmotely funny.
12. Tokyo Girl
Ahh yes, another dance track from Flowers. I lied. I just forgot. This should have been a single - it even beats Danny's similarly themed single, which itself was amazing anyway.
13. Da Capo
The title track from an album that following the exuberance of Flowers 5 years later just felt far too vanilla for my liking: this was the only song that could justify their claim that the album was a return to the vintage Ace of Base sound.
14. Lucky Love
Following a UK top 20 with another one proves my point that they still had a fan base worth exploiting in the UK, but whatever. Life Is A Flower might be a re-write of this, but both are bright and gloomy and infinitely seductive.
15. Always 21
Continuing where they left off with Flowers, my furstration at their record company not releasing this is higher than Kerry Katona having a quiet night in watching Atomic Kitten's Top 40 Hen night Anthems on MTV.
16. Unspeakable
Another Da Capo highlight, with a stunning video clip it incredulously bombed in Sweden where they very rarely had properly big hits anyway.
17. Don't Go Away
A Flowers album track that totally married them to the possibility of a new audience being a MOR Celine Dion style ballad not a million miles off her song A New Day Has Come, but then regular readers might have sensed I sometimes stretch my imagination a bit too far.
18. Donnie
A soft vocal, a tender song with a sweet innosense to it. The strings are lush, and predictably, it was good enough to be a single. Just buy the flaming album Flowers if you don't have it already - their macbre art of being miserable will improve your life immeasurably.
19. Wheel of Fortune
Thier first single, I love the maudlin reggae feel which is totally authentic and quite a feat for po-faced white Scandinavians. Linn's foreboding vocal is marvelously insipid.
20. Hey Darling
Another air-surfing track (think Geri's pivotal balancing moment in the Spice Up Your Life video and back me up on this). Charming, life-affirming pop from them as ever, and yes 20 songs has meant no room for both the amazing Always Have, Always Will and actually sensational Voules-Vouz Danser.
